Watch: Texas woman gets stuck in dizzying dust devil that she calls her own 'personal tornado'
Leslie Holt was temporarily trapped in a weather phenomenon known as a dust devil. The encounter was caught on camera and more than 5 million people have watched her video on TikTok.
Texas woman gets trapped in dust devil outside work
Leslie Holt said this video of her wild dust devil encounter was captured on security footage at work in San Antonio, Texas.
SAN ANTONIO – A Texas woman recently found herself in her own "personal tornado" when she was caught in a dust devil.
Leslie Holt told FOX Weather she was leaving the boat and RV dealership in San Antonio, where she works, when she encountered some gusty winds Monday. It wasn't long before she realized she was stuck in a vortex.
"I'm going to turn my back to it if it's just a wall of wind and wait for it to pass real quick," she said. "I turn around, and I'm like, ‘Why is the wall in front of me?’"
Holt was on the phone with her husband the entire time and didn’t lose a beat after the dust devil evaporated.
"I looked back really quick and saw the funnel go up into the sky," Holt said, which is when the Texas native realized it was a dust devil.
Dust devils are created by strong surface heating and typically last only a few minutes. The vortices are usually smaller and less intense than a tornado but, on average, reach between 500 and 1,000 feet tall.
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A screenshot of security camera video showing Leslie Holt completely surrounded by a dust devil.
(Leslie Holt)
A slow-motion video Holt shared shows her getting wrapped up in dust as the vortex sucks her ponytail up above her head, whipping her purse around her body and turning her around in the process.
She asked her employer to check the security cameras facing the parking lot and the video was too entertaining not to share. Holt uploaded the video to TikTok, which now has more than 5 million views.
Holt has been having fun with the social media whirlwind surrounding her post on TikTok, even making a new video to T-Pain’s song "Cyclone."
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Of course, TikTok commenters are having fun, too.
"I have a fear of tornadoes, and I had no idea they could personally attack me," one person wrote on Holt's video.
Others have said Holt is part of the X-Men, was being "beamed up" to the Mother Ship or needed to find her ruby red slippers from "The Wizard of Oz."